August #20

What is there left
when you've written about everything?
Perhaps, to wallow
in the morbidity of death -
it would certainly ensure
immortality
in the literary halls of fame.
But how overdone,
how better done,
by so many others,
by Emilys and Sylvias and Poes,
Dickenses and Garpses and eternal others,
others we study for long hours,
hunched over dusty books
in endless halls
of peeling, tall-windowed wisdom.
What is there left to write about,
but symbols and jargon -
no wonder those other writers long before
could write so deep,
for after they covered the briefness
of humanity
and the bloom of all life,
they could only resort to theme,
empty, longing, meaningless,
symbolic theme.
What else is there to write about,
when love and hate,
despair and hope,
have been exhausted, extinguished?
Longlasting theme, indeed.